Ara Papian: OSCE MG trying to resurrecting Stalinism in a single region alone

PanARMENIAN.Net - One of the most important fundaments of maintaining order is functioning within one’s own mandate, within one’s own area of authority. This applies as well, without any qualifications, to bodies established as per international law and working in the realm of international relations, head of Head of the Modus Vivendi Centre, historian Ara Papian said in his article titled “The Co-chairs are Simply the Mediators or, An Attempt at Resurrecting Stalinism in a Single Region Alone.”

“Nevertheless, it appears that this simple truth is being dismissed ever increasingly by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. The latest testament to such an approach is the expression “the seven occupied territories of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh (NK)” found in the report of the co-chairs of the 24th of March, 2011. It is evident that, by such phrasing, this group has clearly functioned outside of its authority and violated its own mandate,” Mr. Papian said.

“No-one has authorised this group of co-chairs to decide the status or fate of any piece of territory. Who has given that group the right to even equate what they refer to as “Nagorno-Karabakh” with the former Autonomous Oblast of Mountainous Karabakh of the erstwhile USSR? That is to be decided by the parties in dispute. The authority of the co-chairs is limited to mediation, that is, to benefit the process of negotiations founded on the exclusion of the use of force. That is absolutely and clearly codified in the mandate of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group: “Promoting a resolution of the conflict without the use of force and in particular facilitating negotiations for a peaceful and comprehensive settlement” [Mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the Conference on Nagorno-Karabakh under the auspices of OSCE (“Minsk Group”, Vienna, 23 March 1995, DOC.525/95)]”. None of the fifteen clauses of this mandate provide for the co-chairs to come to some final decision or to make any sort of ruling on anything.”

He went on saying: “It is even more extraordinary and perfectly baseless to refer to territories surrounding the former Autonomous Oblast of Mountainous Karabakh as “territories of Azerbaijan”. I imagine that the co-chairs, as high-ranking and experienced diplomats, are more aware than I am that the legal possession of any territory in international law is decided by the title to territory and not by administrative boundaries. If they or anyone else could cite any international legal document – again, any international, and, again, any legal document, as opposed to the decision of some political party – that the title to even a square inch of the current territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has ever been recognised as belonging to the Republic of Azerbaijan, I would publicly apologise for my ignorance. And if that cannot be done, then I am correct and consequently no one, and certainly not any mediating group, has the right to make use of such baseless wording.”

“A question may arise: what kind of phrasing to use, then? I believe it would be most appropriate to say, “the territories adjacent to former the Autonomous Oblast of Mountainous Karabakh”, without mentioning “Azerbaijan”, as the AOMK (or NKAO, to use its Russian abbreviation) was an autonomous unit within the Soviet Union, which was subject to the entire country’s authority in an indirect manner; that is to say, it was an administrative unit of the USSR through yet another administrative unit of the USSR. As a reminder, the Soviet Union had a four-tier administrative organisation and, independent of the tier level of the administrative unit, each administrative unit was considered the same in terms of title: all of those administrative units were subject to one and the same authority, namely, the sovereignty of the USSR,” Mr. Papian said.

“Let me also emphasise that the administrative boundaries set by Stalin could never act as legal bases for the delimitation of frontiers of states, as international law makes clear, that ex injuria jus non oritur, that is, law does not arise out of injustice. And let me remind the forgetful that the very OSCE which authorised the co-chairs equated Stalinism with Nazism in its resolution “Divided Europe Reunited” at Vilnius on the 3rd of July, 2009. Is anyone in Europe ready today to return to the boundaries set by Hitler? So why would one think that it is acceptable to resurrect the crimes carried out by Stalin in the southern Caucasus?”